Sweetest Downfall
by ohgeekyone
Summary: "You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first." Tommy/OC.
1. Part One: 1

**I doubt many will read this but I've become obsessed with Peaky Blinders over Christmas! **

**This story is split into two parts: pre-War and post-War. I'm not really following any other storylines yet and just kind of running away with the characters. Updating will not be consistent after I've gotten out all the parts I've written (I've written up to Part Two for now). **

**I've not really read around FF on this show so I don't know if this has been done. Please do let me know if it has. On that note, enjoy!**

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><p>I first met Thomas Shelby when I was nine years old.<p>

I'd been friends with Ada since we were six and I saw her racing her brother John at the park down the road; I'd joined in before I even knew their names - no other girls wanted to race on the muddy grass for fear of ruining the dresses their mothers slaved away making. I had no mother to make my dresses and I got given the ones the other girls' mothers gave to me out of pity, the ones their children had grown out of. Sometimes I ended up in boys clothes when the mothers on our street in Birmingham could just alter their daughters' dresses instead of making new ones. The trousers got me far more stares than the too-small dresses or the skirts that were so big on me that not even rolling them up helped. So when I saw a little girl, dressed in a crisp white dress with flowers around the edges running along in the mud with another boy - and she was winning - I knew I'd have to be friends with her. Finally, I'd thought, someone to play with.

Our friendship had blossomed beautifully. We'd grown close instantly, telling each other our secrets: which girls we didn't like, which neighbours we thought were nasty and all the other secrets six year olds had. The secrets had evolved as we had. We grew taller, our hair got longer and so on and so forth, and we'd giggle at boys rather than racing them. The boys in our area weren't particularly intelligent, but they'd played with us whenever we asked to join in and they'd never treated us any differently.

That changed the day Thomas Shelby showed up at the park a few weeks after I'd turned nine.

Ada and I were playing hide and seek with our friends, Jack and Robbie, so naturally we were both covered in muck, grass stains, and I even had a twig in my hair from hiding in the undergrowth along the outskirts of the park. It was Ada's turn to seek and Robbie and I were hiding behind two trees, our arms straight at our sides, laughing quietly and shushing each other when one of us laughed too loud.

Our giggles stopped when we heard a boy's voice call out across the small field, startling us because of the deepness of it. It wasn't Jack's voice, or any of the boys we played with. I peeked around the tree to see a tall boy with dark hair striding towards Ada - who had been counting by the swing set - and my stomach dropped a little. His face told us that he was angry at her. He looked older than us by maybe five or six years and the posh suit he wore only made him look more grown up.

I slowly crept out from behind the tree, ignoring Robbie's whispered calls to go back to hiding. Ada was my best friend - nobody, not even a fifteen year old, would shout at her while I was there to back her up.

As I approached, I heard him reproaching her. "Ada, you were meant to be home over an hour ago. Pol's been worried."

"We're playing Tommy!" Ada snapped, looking the boy up and down and straightening herself to make her look taller.

"Oh yeah? Who's playin'?"

"Me, Daisy, Robbie and Jack."

The boy nodded his head slowly, and as I got closer I saw that he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, smoke rising gently from it. It made him seem older and I started to think maybe he was more like seventeen rather than the fourteen or fifteen I'd originally thought.

"You can play all you like Ada, so long as yer back in time for dinner. And not with boys - if you wanna play with boys, John and his mates'll play with ya."

She groaned dramatically. "I don't wanna play with John and his friends, they're too boring. They just want to sit around and pretend to be you and Arthur."

I realised who this was. It was her brother Thomas, who she fondly called Tommy when she spoke about him at all. She didn't talk much of her family and I'd assumed it was because she knew how sensitive the topic was when I didn't have one. The orphanage owners and the other kids I lived with on the street down the road from Ada were the only 'family' I could ever consider to be my own. But they beat me often when I was bad, which seemed to be a lot, and Ada had told me that a proper family never intentionally hurt each other. Not even when they were bad, she said.

I slowed down my approach because I didn't want to get too close to Thomas Shelby. I'd heard stories about him, the fights he got into, the girls he chased on occasion, the way his family did something illegal but the coppers all turned a blind eye to. He was not a boy to mess with - their whole family, Ada excluded, were dangerous… or at least that's what I'd overheard from Joe, the orphanage owner.

But it was too late. He'd heard me coming and he slowly turned around to inspect me.

It was odd seeing a boy look at me like he did. I'd seen a few of the older boys leering at me, but never had someone observed me so intensely, like he could see all my secrets, all my fears, all my dreams. I didn't like it.

"You Daisy, then?" He breathed in on the cigarette, pulled it out of his mouth and blew the smoke at me. I didn't cough or flinch - living in Birmingham, you got used to the smoke everywhere. The factory kind and the cigarette kind.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I'd been told my several people, Joe in particular, that I was naughty and always spoke "with no respect for me elders". If there was one person I didn't want to offend, it was Ada's brother.

"You the reason my sister's an hour late for supper?"

He didn't look mad. His face was completely blank, his bright blue eyes staring at me without blinking.

I looked over at Ada who had breathed in, probably to defend me and say it was her fault she was out so late, but I'd gotten so used to taking the blame for the things me and Ada did that I automatically said, "Yes."

He took another drag, still staring at me and ignoring the way Ada hit his arm as she told him that she was old enough now to stay out past 7pm.

He didn't seem to have anything to say so I kept talking. "We were playing, I forgot Ada had to be back by 7. Sorry."

It felt like I was always saying sorry. Sorry for not getting the right bread from the market, sorry for not knowing how to get to the butchers and getting lost, sorry that Joe's money he'd given to me had been stolen by a man twice the size of me the other week… But apologising to Thomas was different. He actually seemed to consider it.

"You'll make sure it won't happen again."

It wasn't a question.

He grabbed Ada's arm gently and started to pull her away when my mouth ran away with me before I could stop it. "I can't promise that, Sir."

He stopped, and Ada's face paled as she started at me.

"What do you mean by that Daisy?" His voice had grown a little colder as he said it.

I swallowed thickly, my heart thudding in my ears. I idly wondered where Jack and Robbie had gone. "I like playing with Ada, Sir, and if I'm hiding that good that she can't find me, and it keeps her out later, that's not something I'm gonna stop."

His eyebrow twitched as Ada quietly reprimanded me. "Dais, stop. I'll be home by 7 next time Tommy, okay?"

Even at that young age, he wasn't used to being told no. It was all I'd ever heard and I hated it. It was why I got into trouble so much. Daisy, you can't go to a school, you're too poor and too stupid. Daisy, you can't play with Ada Shelby, you're so far beneath her, you might as well be shit on her shoe. But she'd be damned if this boy was telling her she couldn't play properly with her best friend.

"What do your parents think about you being home so late?"

"Don't have none."

His face didn't change one bit, but he did finish his cigarette and throw it to the ground beside him. "Well then…" He paused, looking from Ada to me and back again. "Who am I to stop good game of hide and seek?"

He smirked as he left, taking Ada with him. Stopping a good game of hide and seek.


	2. Part One: 2

I started going round to the Shelby's house more after that. I didn't see Thomas or Arthur very much, but I did see John a lot. Him and his friends played with us a lot, but Ada and I had compromised that we'd play in the street outside their house at night so her Aunt Polly could watch over us. She even fed me when we played at night. Proper meals too, not the mush I was usually given by Joe.

Thomas occasionally ate with the family but he usually wasn't anywhere to be seen. In fact, I didn't spend more than two minutes with him close by till I was twelve.

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><p>"Oh come on, Dais, every other girl's been kissed. Let me show you," Harry Waller kept trying to push me against the wall and kissing me. Despite the fact that every other girl my age, Ada included, had already been kissed, I didn't want my first kiss to be from Harry Waller, the stuck up boy whose parents gave him everything he wanted. The boy who'd never been cold or hungry or thirsty or truly tired.<p>

"I don't wanna, Harry," I said firmly, pushing him away from me for the second time.

I glanced down the street to see Ada and Jack kissing against the brick wall, using tongues and everything. She'd seen Lizzie Poole kissing a boy like that behind the bakery the other week and she'd been dying to try it out on Jack. They'd been spending a lot more time together recently, and I'd started to feel a bit left out, so when she asked me to come out with her, Jack, and his friend Harry, I immediately said yes without really thinking about it. If I spent too much time indoors at the orphanage I'd run away, far far away, maybe join the gypsies and travel the country going to fairs. I hated it there more than anything and one day I would be rid of it, but not that day. That day, I'd said yes to Ada and, somewhat unsurprisingly, I'd been ditched for Jack, and Harry was still trying to put his mouth on me in any way he could.

He'd managed to get to my neck, his mouth travelling up and down wetly, and it made me grimace.

"Harry, stop it."

His voice got nastier and his hands around my wrists got tighter. "You're nobody, Daisy Smith, what makes you think you're better than me, eh? What makes you think you can say no? My dad says you're gonna be a whore in a few years anyway, a pretty little orphan like you. Said you'd be flat on your back in a whorehouse by the time you're sixteen. So why not let me kiss you, and then you can always say your first kiss was from a Waller."

It was the first time in years that I'd come close to crying. I'd heard stories about girls like me, poor girls with no education, no family, no money whatsoever, and how they'd have to turn to sleeping with people for money just so they could eat. It didn't sound nice. Ada had looked horrified when I brought those girls up. "You can never do anything like that, Daisy, it's for girls like Irene and Lizzie who always flirt and kiss boys. You're better than that, Dais, don't ever do it, okay? It's unholy and wrong and disgusting."

If I was better than that, why did Harry Waller seem to think it was okay for his hands to grip my neck and pull my face closer to his?

"Fucking stop, Harry," I grunted, kneeing him in between his legs like John had told me to if a boy ever tried to hurt me.

Unfortunately, it only made him groan in pain for a second and then he was just angry. His hand whipped out and slapped hard across the face, my lip splitting on one of his rings. It hurt, but I'd had worse. Joe was twice the size of him and had been twice as angry at me at many points in my life.

"You fuckin' cunt," he growled, grabbing me by my neck but from the front this time, squeezing hard enough so that my eyes widened and started to water. "You're gonna kiss me and one day, when you're nothing but a whore who lives to fuck men like my dad says, I'm gonna make you regret that."

And he forced his mouth onto mine, pushing his tongue into my mouth and his body against mine before I could bring my leg up to kick him or my hand up to hit him back. I screamed against his mouth, hoping Ada would hear me and stop him before he got even more violent. His other hand was in my hair, gripping it tight, so when someone pulled him off me, a huge chunk of my red hair went with him.

I yelped in pain and breathed heavily to stop myself from crying. Looking up expecting to see Jack or Ada, I blanched when I saw Thomas Shelby punching Harry right in the nose, blood spraying in all directions and a sickening crunch resonating through the night air.

"You think it's alright to kiss girls who don't want kissing, boy? Hm?" Thomas sounded so mad, and while I was used to people being mad at me, I knew without any doubt that he was mad at Harry and only Harry. _And rightly so._

I had the sudden thought that maybe Thomas thought I was going to be a whore too. Maybe that was why he hadn't wanted me and Ada playing too late, playing too much together. Maybe I was a bad influence. Maybe he was disgusted with me.

I stayed quiet as Thomas whispered something in Harry's ear and shoved him away. As I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, careful not to get blood on my dress as it was one of my nicer ones Mrs Light, a neighbour, had given me, I saw Harry scrambling to get away from Thomas, dashing down the street and around the corner shouting something about his father and how he was going to make Thomas regret that. Even shouting threats, he still looked terrified. I couldn't blame him - Thomas looked deadly. Time had only made Thomas Shelby more intimidating. He moved gracefully and silently, but still managed to look threatening. He smiled when he was with his friends but even then you knew that he could hurt you if he wanted to. And he'd clearly wanted to hurt Harry.

'"You alright?"

He was looking at me with the same intensity he had three years ago on that park. It scared me, that someone so young could look so perceptive. It felt like he saw everything about me, from my borrowed dress to the dirt still in my hair from days ago. I didn't like it at all.

"Yeah…" My voice came out shakily and I didn't like it. I always had to be strong around Thomas or else he'd walk all over me, Ada had said. She'd told me to never outright defy him like I'd done at the park, but I should never cower before him. "Or any man," she'd said.

"Ada!" He shouted, not taking his eyes off me and the blood trickling down my chin. "Go home now."

I looked over to see Ada disconnect herself from Jack and look round in surprise. "Tommy!" She quickly pushed Jack away from her so it didn't look compromising, but I knew he'd already seen.

"Just go home, Ada," he said quietly, but I knew she'd heard because she swallowed, looked at me with wide, confused and questioning eyes, waited for me to nod to tell her I was okay, and then grabbed Jack's hand and dashed off down the street, leaving Thomas Shelby and I alone.

"Come on, let's get you back home." He sounded tired, I noticed, like he just wanted to go to sleep.

"It's not really home," I muttered under my breath, straightening my dress. Harry had pulled down the corner and I was still worried I had the look of a whore-in-the-making.

We walked in silence to the orphanage and my face turned sour when I saw it at the end of the road. I hated it there, so so much. Everyone in there hated me and I hated everyone.

I slowed down unintentionally, trying to prolong my time in the quiet evening just a little longer.

Thomas noticed, glancing back at me and sighing.

"Daisy, it's been a long day. Come on now, I need to get you back so I can go to sleep myself."

I was being an inconvenience again.

"Sorry," I mumbled, shuffling forwards ahead of him quickly. "You don't have to walk me all the way back, it's just there. Thanks for dealing with Harry."

I rushed off in the direction of the orphanage when I heard him sigh again. "I didn't mean that. I'm just tired. I'll walk you back; come 'ere."

I paused, turning back around. "Honestly, it's fine. Go home."

"What were you doing kissing Harry Waller?"

The question came nonchalantly, as though we'd been talking about Harry and his question didn't come out of nowhere.

"I wasn't. He was kissing me and I was trying to get him off me."

"I know, I saw," he drawled quietly. "I meant what were you doing with him in the first place? He's a piece of work, that kid is."

I scoffed. "Yeah I noticed." I gestured to the cut on my lip and my head that I was sure would have a bald patch where Harry had ripped my hair out.

Thomas stayed quiet while I looked down at my feet. The question didn't mean to come out, but I said it anyway because otherwise I'd lie awake wondering what his answer would be.

"Am I a whore, Thomas? Or gonna be one?"

He blinked at me before taking a packet of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and lighting one slowly. He took two drags before he answered. "Is that what he said to you?"

I nodded. "It's probably true. I ain't gonna be anything worth anythin', am I? I'm nobody with nothin'. I'll _have_ to start sleeping with old men just to live." I grimaced at the thought. I wasn't sure I could have sex with someone Joe's age. I didn't know much about sex, only what I'd heard around the teenagers on the street and the orphanage, but I did know it wasn't good for the girl. Even at twelve, I knew that sex was for the boys and the girls typically had to just lie there.

"Do you think you're a whore?"

I shrugged, feeling silly that I'd brought it up. I was just a kid and I didn't know anything about what I was talking about. I knew Thomas Shelby did. "Don't whores have to kiss loads of people? That was my first kiss, so I don't think I'm a whore yet…"

He took another drag, still watching me carefully. "Your first kiss was that kid?"

I paused before nodding. It didn't sound any better when it was said out loud compared to in my head. I supposed I could have kissed someone worse than Harry Waller - he had lots of friends and his family were really rich. He might have hit me and made me kiss him, but some boys had done worse things to some of the girls me and Ada saw. Some were black and blue with bruises, and some girls who were only a year or two older than me and Ada were pregnant. Not those who lived near Ada, mind, but the girls who lived on my street. The girls who were whores and washer women and lived under a roof with three times as many people as it was made for.

He finished his cigarette, threw it to the floor and strolled towards me. He only stopped when he was a step away from me and it was only then that I realised how tall he was and how much he had filled out since I was nine. He looked… well, he looked more like a man than a boy.

"Listen to me, Daisy Smith," he muttered quietly, as though he was worried anyone but me would hear his words, "boys like Harry Waller will always think they can walk all over girls like you who ain't rich. But they only do it if you let them. So if you don't wanna be a whore, Daisy, don't be a whore. Do whatever you want to do and anyone who says you can't can go fuck themselves. If you can tell _me_ no when you were nine, you can tell people like him no, too. Ya hear?"

I took in a shaky breath and exhaled it as I looked away. His eyes were too intense, too bright, too examining. "I hear ya, Thomas."

He nodded before putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets. "It's Tommy. I'll see you soon, Daisy Smith."

As he walked away from me, he turned around and shouted back, "And if Harry or any other boy tries to kiss you if you don't wanna kiss them, you find me and tell me, and me and Arthur'll make sure nobody does it ever again."


	3. Part One: 3

I was fifteen when our relationship changed. Tommy started hanging around with Ada and me after the debacle with Harry Waller, almost as though he didn't trust us to be alone. It was…nice. He was quiet most of the time but he always joined in with conversations, adding his own stories and jokes. He laughed a lot more than I'd expected, especially when he and Ava were on good terms. He was about twenty, I thought, and had started to work with Arthur and his father when he'd turned eighteen. I didn't entirely understand what it was that he did, something to do with betting and horses, but Ada said it was mostly illegal. I'd replied that surely the police wouldn't allow something illegal to happen so openly, but she'd told me that a lot of the coppers were in on it. What I'd heard when I was a kid had been right after all.

Tommy and I were…friends. We talked together, laughed together, he walked Ada and I anywhere we were going if he wasn't too busy. He'd complained quietly to me before that he was pretty much running the company, even though that was meant to be Arthur's job since he was the eldest. Their Aunt Polly helped with the running of it also, but in the end a lot of the planning and executions of their work were orchestrated by Tommy. He was far far more intelligent than I had ever given him credit for. Than anyone gave him credit for. He would be why their company thrived, not Arthur or Polly. He found it stressful but in secret, I noticed that he flourished when he was in his work zone. He seemed thrilled by his cleverness, that it was him who could solve a situation nobody else could. He got almost giddy (or as giddy as someone like Tommy could be) after whatever he'd planned had been executed without a hitch and that was when he was at his best.

The Shelby's, or the Peaky Blinders as I'd heard people call them (and the people in on their work) around the streets and heard Arthur shout when he was rallying his team, had returned from one such successful outing that day it all changed. Tommy walked through the front door of The Garrison to find me and Ada sat in a corner, her telling me everything that had been happening between her and Jack - she was actually planning on having sex with him next week! They'd done everything else and I was a little hurt that she was only telling me then. Ada had told me explicitly that sex and the things related to it weren't just for the boy, but the girl too. She told me she'd never felt anything like it when Jack's hands were on her private areas, but that it was only good if the boy knew what they were doing. As Jack and her had been dating since we were kids, I had asked her how he'd gotten so good at it. She'd not spoken to me for a week after I'd asked that.

Of course, she'd stopped talking about sex when her family walked in, but my face clearly still looked sour and a little hurt because when Tommy came over to kiss Ada's cheek, he bent down towards me and my cheek and muttered, "Everything alright?" I nodded silently, because what else could I say? I couldn't exactly start talking to him about how Ada and Jack were going to do it in the bedroom next to his next Saturday, could I?

A few hours later, once everyone had finished celebrating and were starting to trawl home, I hugged Ada and told her I'd see her tomorrow. I looked meaningfully at her so that she'd know I was going to have something to say about her and Jack's relationship.

If I'd have been willing to admit it, I would have told her that I was simply jealous. Nobody wanted me the way Jack wanted Ada - he worshipped her. You could tell by the way he looked at her, full of longing and hope. Like she was everything he'd ever wished for. It made me wonder if the other girls he'd "practised" on to get good at sex was just so he could show Ada and make her feel the best she could. The only way boys looked at me was as though they were waiting - waiting for me to finally do it and I could be classed a whore and everyone could have a go. I'd heard them all whispering and laughing about it. It wasn't fair - if Ada had sex, nobody would care. She was with Jack and he was from a good family. Not exactly rich, but definitely not poor. But if I had sex… I would be considered fair game. Because I wasn't rich or even comfortable. I had nothing. Not a penny to my name. I had no education, nothing that was going to help me in the future. Just a good relationship with the Shelby family and I would have to hope they'd help me in a few years when I turned eighteen and I needed money or a job. Mrs Light, the neighbour who often gave me clothes when I needed them, had started teaching me how to sew and make clothes so that I could make dresses and shirts when I was older and sell them for a living. It seemed a bit far fetched, but it was something. I knew I needed some kind of plan for when I turned eighteen and got kicked out of the orphanage.

Ada left with John, Arthur and Polly, leaving me and Tommy alone. It had become standard procedure for him to walk me back to the orphanage at the end of every night. It was often the best part of my day. Sometimes we didn't even speak and we just walked, the sounds of Birmingham the only thing breaking the silence.

Tonight was one of those nights. He just gave me a look and I immediately jumped up and grabbed my coat, and followed him out of the door. It took until the orphanage was in sight before he said something.

"I saw you talking to Johnny Rich tonight."

I slowed down but I didn't stop. He wouldn't like it if I stopped - it'd put him off talking. He liked everything casual, Tommy did. I'd noticed it over the years. When we spoke on the walk home, just me and him, if I stopped to speak, he'd change his mind about whatever he was going to say and carried on without me, only tuning his head to the side to see if I'd catch up. So I'd learnt to never put too much importance on our quiet talks that we had in private.

"He came over to talk to Ada and we got chatting, I guess."

It hadn't been anything important. It was him being polite to Ada's friend, I was sure.

"You should stay away from him, he's bad news."

I rolled my eyes at him. Whenever me and Ada talked to boys that weren't Jack or his family, he didn't think they were good news and always told me so. It had made me laugh when I'd first clicked on to this and told him that he and his family were the worst news in Birmingham. He'd laughed loudly at that. Tommy Shelby laughing was a sight, indeed - it was like seeing a rainbow through the smoke of Birmingham centre: very very rare but a sight you couldn't take your eyes off no matter what.

"Are you rolling your eyes at me, Daisy Smith?" His voice was his usual deep monotone, but it had a teasing lilt to it. It made me glow like a kid when he teased me, or did anything with such familiarity to me. Especially when it was just me and him - it was intimate, almost, our walks home. It made my heart beat faster when he cocked his head in his "get your coat, we're off" way and I knew that for the nest fifteen minutes at least, it would just be me and him.

"Johnny's nice, Tommy. He was the only boy in there that you or Arthur haven't scared away from me and Ada yet."

"That'll change" I heard him mutter under his breath.

I laughed once, and nudged him playfully in his arm forcing him to drop the cigarette he was holding. Knowing how seriously he took his smoking, he was _always_ smoking, I snorted a laugh and dodged his arm and he reached out to push me back, a small close-mouthed grin on his face.

"Why would you want to inhale more smoke when we've got so much around here anyway?" I asked him for the millionth time; it was a running joke between us.

"Because not everyone is as innocent as you Daisy and once you've had a couple, it's hard to stop," he told me, looking down at the new cigarette he was lighting, still slowly walking forwards towards the place that housed only hatred towards me.

I walked alongside him, looking at him - I was always looking at him while he looked down or straight ahead or anywhere but at me, because these walks home were the only way I could look at him like I wanted to - and smiling disbelievingly at his words. "Innocent? Me? Have you not heard about all the trouble I get myself and your sister into?"

"That's just cause you've got a smart mouth and don't ever think before you say anythin'."

This was true. I'd learnt that early on - it was what always got me into trouble with Joe, who was always so careful to hit me in places no one could see after he'd bruised my eye and Tommy and Arthur had gone to talk to him about it. Now he just hit me on my stomach mostly, so Tommy couldn't see, and Joe had told me about his friends in the gypsy clan that the Peaky Blinders didn't like so much, and how he'd get them to pay Tommy a visit if I said anything to him. I was so used to being hit, and so worried about anything that'd ruin mine and Tommy's friendship, that I'd not told Tommy that Joe was still hitting me. My smart mouth often got me into trouble and trouble often got me walking with a hunch every now and then. I didn't really want Tommy to know I wasn't smart enough to avoid being hit, or tell Ada that I wasn't strong enough to stand up for myself like she would. Smart mouthed, yes, but smart minded?

My smile dropped as I thought about Joe and Tommy clearly noticed when he glanced up at my lack of reply.

We were quiet again, still walking agonisingly slowly down the road, as though neither of us wanted to reach the orphanage. _What a belly-warming thought_.

"Do you wanna try one?"

I looked up in surprise. Arthur had offered me and Ada many cigarettes in our time at The Garrison, but when Ada looked at him in disgust and told him that in no way was she going to smoke one of those things, I'd had no choice but to agree with her and say no.

"Really?"

He nodded, still taking drags of his. "I'd rather you try it with me than with someone like Johnny fucking Rich."

Rolling my eyes again, I wandered closer to him and took the cigarette he offered to me, holding it between my two fingers like I'd seen Polly do, rather than between a finger and a thumb like Tommy did. It looked more ladylike, and anything that made me look more feminine (cause God knows I didn't look much like a girl at all with my lack of hips and breasts) was a positive in my mind.

Feeling stupid, but older than my fifteen years, I stood there with this burning cigarette in my hand. "Um, what do I do?"

He smiled indulgently at me and explained, "Put it between your lips, suck on it and then inhale some more so you feel it in your chest, hold it, then breathe out."

I blushed a little bit at his explanation of it, and was grateful for the darkness that he couldn't see it. I did as he instructed… and spluttered out my breath in a hacking cough.

Waving my fingers in his general direction so he'd take the burning thing from me, I wiped my eyes to get rid of the water that'd gathered from my coughing. When my eyes opened again, I saw he was laughing over my coughs, his eyes a bright blue that was only intensified with laughter.

"You've really not done this before, have ya?"

Still coughing, albeit not nearly as hard as before, I looked at him with an irritated expression on my face. "I told you I'd never tried it, Tommy! Thanks for the bloody warnin'."

Throwing the burnt out cigarette to the floor, he put his hands in his coat pocket, still grinning a little. "Girls lie about things sometimes."

What an odd thing to say. Who would dare lie to Tommy Shelby? "Not me."

His smile slowly dropped and his expression got more serious as he stared at me. "No, not you."

It was only then that I realised that we'd stopped walking. He hated to stop walking, he liked our talks to be casual and light, but he had stopped and his expression was so intense that nobody could ever look at the two of us in that street and call us casual and light.

Finally, he reached into his pocket and got out another. "Come 'ere," he said with the cigarette in his mouth.

Swallowing deeply, I walked towards him, my red hair blowing across my face in a mess that prevented me from seeing him for a second. I pushed it away, and stopped when I was a meter or so away from him.

He cocked his head to indicate that I come even closer so, holding my breath, I did. Closer and closer until we were basically flush against each other. If I took another step we would be.

He inhaled his cigarette, and, bending down so his lips were _right next to mine,_ he paused for a moment, waiting for something. It clicked that he was waiting for me and, instinctively, I opened my mouth a little bit. He breathed out the smoke and I breathe it in. It didn't burn my throat and lungs this time; I just felt warm. I didn't think the smoke had anything to do with that though - just Tommy's closeness.

I expected him to lean back and continue walking down the street, but he didn't. He just stood there, his lips so so close to mine, and his eyes were glued onto mine. Blue into green.

Not wanting to ruin this moment, the moment I'd thought about only in my wildest dreams, I stayed silent and I didn't move. Just stared back at him.

Finally, I _had_ to ruin it. It was getting awkward and I didn't want to seem like a silly girl who didn't know how to behave around someone like him. So I cleared my throat a little, licked my lips and started to step back from him, before his hand shot out and grasped me around my neck. He exhaled sharply, harshly, as though he was mad or determined or frustrated, and in a magical moment, his lips crashed onto mine.

My upper body jerked back at the force of his kiss, but he counteracted it by using his other hand, cigarette thrown to the ground, to pull the small of my back closer against him so that I was arched into his warm, strong body.

It was everything I had ever wanted it to be. When Harry Waller had tried putting his tongue in my mouth all those years ago, I had found it disgusting, but when Tommy did it, I actually sighed into his mouth. Not knowing really where to put my hands, I decided to throw any caution I had to the wind and did something I'd wanted to do for years: I pushed off his cap so I could get even closer to him - careful to mind the razor blade I knew was tucked away in the front - and grasped onto the base of his neck, feeling the short hair coming through from when he'd last had it cut into the classic Peaky Blinder style.

The kiss lasted all of ten seconds, a forceful and passionate whirlwind of tongues, lips and hands, before he wretched himself away from me and did the same thing I'd done at twelve when Harry Waller had stopped kissing me - he wiped his mouth.

Frowning, I stepped forward after him, not understanding anything that had just happened. The kiss or the retreat. "What—"

I broke off when he bent down to get his cap and looked away from me, breathing hard through his nose.

"Fuckin' fifteen," I heard him say to himself.

I swallowed shakily, knowing what he was about to say. I was too young, too much of a kid to be able to handle someone like him, too naive, too silly.

"Daisy, you're—"

"I know what I am," I interrupted coldly, hurt by him pulling away. "I'm just a silly little girl." I laughed humourlessly, and started ambling back to the orphanage, not able to look back at him and see the regret in his face.

"I'll see you soon, I guess, Tommy."

He didn't follow me, insisting that he walk me the rest of the way like he always did. He didn't shout anything at me, and I didn't look back to see if he was still there once I got to the orphanage. I just walked inside, saw Joe sitting drunk at the kitchen table, and heard him slur, "What time do you call this?" as he stood up from his chair, his fists already clenching in anticipation.


	4. Part One: 4

A week later, he came to see me at the orphanage.

I'd heard his voice from the doorway asking for me, and my heart had started pounding so fast I thought for sure he'd be able to hear it. But when I walked to the door to see what he wanted, he looked at me like he always did.

I didn't speak.

Nor did he.

He started reaching his hand into his pocket to reach for his cigarette box, but then thought better of it and forced his hand down.

"Daisy I'm sorry about what happened."

There it was. The regret I'd been desperate for him not to feel. I closed my eyes briefly before opening them again and saying, with more courage than I'd thought I had, "I'm not."

"You're too young," he said conclusively, as though that explained everything away so easily.

"I'll be sixteen in a few months," I countered, trying to sound older like the girls I usually saw him with and the girls Arthur brought to the house on occasion. "There are girls my age gettin' married at sixteen. Girls younger than me who're pregnant already."

"Do ya really wanna be one of those girls, Dais?"

I huffed, "Of course not. I wasn't going to _fuck_ you, Tommy, I just wanted to kiss you." I threw the swear word in there for emphasis and when his jaw tightened a little and he looked to the side, I knew it had done what she intended. He always tensed his strong jaw when he felt some kind of emotion, usually anger or sadness, but didn't want to show it.

"You're five years younger than me."

"So?"

"You're my little sister's best friend."

"Yes?"

He rolled his eyes at me like he couldn't believe I wasn't understanding his point.

"I don't do girlfriends."

"Who said I wanted to be your girlfriend?"

He almost smiled at that. "Cause you're too good to be anything less than that to a boy."

"You're not a boy."

He _did_ smile at that. "Maybe when you're sixteen it won't be as bad…"

I scoffed. "It's four months away. What difference can four months make?"

"What do you want from me, Daisy?"

I looked down, not knowing how to answer the question. I didn't know how to answer that question.

"I want to kiss you more," I said decisively. "And have a right to be mad when I see girls rubbing up against you. Like Lizzie." Because I hated that.

He sighed quietly and didn't respond. We were silent for two whole minutes before I said something again.

"You talk to me more than you talk to anyone, Tommy," I whispered, feeling for a moment like the young girl he accused me of.

"I know," he muttered quietly back, as though he was reluctant to even admit it to himself.

Silence again.

"I need to talk to Ada before."

My heart stopped and my head whipped up. "What?"

He pointed a finger at me and tried to look serious, but I could see his eyes glowing brighter than they were when he showed up.

"No, Dais, don't get excited. I need to talk to Ada."

I smiled because Ada must, _must_, know I've fancied her brother since we were twelve. She just couldn't be against it. She was my best friend. She wouldn't ever say no to something that made me happy.

* * *

><p>Ada wasn't happy, and she told me so the next day.<p>

"He's my _brother_, Dais! He's so…old. And he can be mean sometimes. Why would you want to go out with him?"

I considered this for a moment, trying to decide how best to answer in a way that Ada would get. "Yaknow when you see Jack and your face explodes into a huge smile and you're _so_ _happy_ Ada? That's how I feel when I see Tommy."

She sat there looking at me like she'd never seen me before. "When did this even start?"

"We talk a lot on our walks home."

"I thought it was just something that'd go away, you fancying him. I didn't think it'd get to the point where he was on board with it too."

I stayed quiet, just hoping inside that she was okay with it. She continued to look at me, baffled, not saying anything. She clearly got that from her brother.

"I really like him, Ada," I told her quietly, grasping her knee. "He's the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm worth nothing."

"Oh, Daisy…"

She'd relented in the end. And by the time my sixteenth birthday came around, Tommy Shelby and I were officially together.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you for your support so far with this story! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I want to quickly mention that if this first part seems fast-paced, it's because I do intend for Part Two to make up the bulk of this work. The main story starts then; this is just an extended background, I suppose. <strong>

**Thanks again!**


	5. Part One: 5

The year we had together was bliss. There was no other way I could describe it. He was never too openly romantic with me, not like Jack with Ada who were always together and always kissing, or holding hands, or holding each other. No, Tommy and I were more reserved than that. I think part of it was because I was sixteen while he was twenty, nearly twenty one, and also because I was so innocent in the ways of men. I'd never had a boyfriend before, hadn't even kissed anyone since Harry Waller, he'd put me off so much. I didn't know how to be in a relationship. I certainly didn't know how to be Tommy Shelby's girlfriend.

I wasn't even sure I could've called myself that. He never did. One day at The Garrison, he came over and sat with me, kissing me quick on the lips and then sitting down next to me. That was all. None of the Shelby's, other than Polly, looked alarmed, but the other customers did, especially the girls there who I knew fancied him. They looked as though they couldn't fathom how a poor, uneducated, orphan girl like me could capture the attention of _the_ Tommy Shelby. I heard Lizzie saying one day that it was only because I was a virgin that he was interested because he'd sampled every other girl in the city. When I'd told Tommy that he'd _really_ laughed, which was the best thing he could've done at that time because I'd felt so silly when I'd told him. I heard Margie, another one of the girls who liked him, saying it was because I was the only girl with hair as bright as mine or as curly in these streets, and everyone knew that Tommy loved strange and unique things.

Eventually I'd just asked him why he was with me one day, on one of our walks back to the orphanage.

He'd not even looked at me when he said, "Cause you're the only girl who's ever said no to me."

When I'd pointed out that I'd been nine when I said no, and had rarely said no to him since, he'd told me that once was enough.

After two months of being together, I finally brought up the sex question. Why hadn't he tried to do it with me yet? Didn't he want to? Was he worried I'd be terrible at it? (I was worried that I'd be terrible at it.) We'd been in a quiet alley across from The Garrison, him pressing me against the wall and kissing me with such passion that my knees had buckled and I was only upright because he was pressed so close against me.

"Tommy?" I mumbled against his mouth when I felt brave enough to bring it up.

"Mm?"

He moved to kissing my neck so deliciously I almost forgot what I was going to say.

"When are you goin' to have sex with me?"

He stopped kissing my neck, but stayed with his head in the crook of my shoulder. "Why are you askin' me that, Daisy Smith?"

I swallowed nervously. "Ava and Jack have done—"

He groaned, the sound vibrating through me and landing in my lower belly. "Don't talk about my sister when you're pressed up against me like this."

"Sorry…"

I felt him smile slightly against my skin. "You're always sayin' sorry for somethin'."

I grinned too, albeit shakily and I was glad he couldn't see it. "I've usually got something to apologise for."

"Not with me."

Remembering those months ago when I'd said, "not me," about lying, he'd replied gently with the same words I spoke then. "No, not with you."

He kissed my neck once before pulling back and looking at me. "Why are you askin' me about sex?"

I tilted my head slightly, wishing he was back there and I'd not said anything. "Do you… I mean… Do you want to…?" I said it quietly but I was amazed I could talk about it at all.

The only experiences I'd had talking about sex were the girls talking about how it wasn't for us, Ada talking about how it was, and Harry Waller telling me everyone thought I'd be a whore one day. It was a sore subject.

"Dais, if you don't understand what this means," he pressed against me harder so I could really feel the stiffness between his legs, "then you're even more innocent than I'd thought."

I exhaled harshly, gripping his arms tighter.

"I know what it means," I said, raising my chin a little and gaining more confidence. "It's just you've done nothing about it yet."

His blue eyes flashed. "Is that a challenge, Daisy Smith?"

We'd had sex two weeks later. It had hurt at first, like both he and Ada had warned me, but soon his hands rubbing circles on me and grasping my breasts, and his mouth kissing me, _kissing kissing_ me so hard I thought I might suffocate, had my body flooding with such exquisite pleasure rather than pain. He'd kept his eyes on mine the whole time, whispering every now and then how beautiful I was. I'd clutched onto him so tight and he'd grasped me back with equal ferocity, leaving my ribs with slight bruises. I didn't care - it was primal, and although I wouldn't admit it to anybody, it made me exceptionally happy that I'd had a temporary mark showing our passion. It was just for me and him, the way it always had been and always would be.

He'd seen the bruises Joe left me when he'd taken my dress off and was kissing his way down my chest, lingering on my breasts before going lower. He'd stopped at my ribcage and pulled away frowning.

"What are these?" He asked quietly, staring hard at the yellowing bruises on me.

"They're nothing," I insisted, just wanting his hands and mouth back on me again.

"Daisy." He'd used his serious voice on me again, speaking like I was one of his lackeys in the Blinders.

I sighed and turned my face away. "Joe doesn't like me much," I half joked, hoping to lighten the situation.

He'd frowned and glared at my stomach so hard it made me get self conscious. I started to pull my arms up to cover myself when he'd shaken his head and pulled my wrists into one of his hands and pulled them above my head.

He kissed me softly then, tenderly, and only said, "Don't keep things from me," before going back to kissing his way down my shaking body.

Then we hadn't been saying much of anything, just gasping and groaning against each other's skin, him whispering things he'd never said to me before and me doing the same.

"You're perfect, Dais…"

"Don't stop, Tommy…"

"So fuckin' pretty…"

"So…good…"

"I'm gonna make love to you every day from now on, Dais, don't you worry…" _I had laughed softly at this, feeling his grin between my breasts._

"I love you, Tommy…"

He'd not said it back, but his body had loved mine in a way I'd never expected. Ada had told me about how good it could be, and it was, but she'd not told me about how beautiful it was. It didn't feel like the "fucking" I'd heard Arthur and John talking about. This was something else. Something that'd been building for years and was finally coming into fruition.

I didn't regret telling him I loved him. I did. With all my heart. For the next year he showed me all the different ways he loved me. He quietly took my hand every now and then at The Garrison. He somehow managed to get Joe to never even look at me again, let alone beat me. He took me to London once when he went on a job and we'd made love with Big Ben visible from our window. He made me laugh. He made me laugh a lot - and I made him laugh in return with silly jokes I'd heard on the street. He argued with Polly when she told him I wasn't good enough for him. He defended me, sometimes too violently, when people shouted rude things at me. He came to me after fights to either calm him down or keep him riled up - I was always more than happy to go along with both. It was only after a fight did our sex ever feel like "fucking" - it was hard and rough and raw but still beautiful because it was _us_. He sometimes held me with such tenderness, like I might break if he held on too tight. He showed that he loved me when he spoke to me about his father, whom he didn't like at all, and told me things he'd never told anyone, not even Ada, not even Arthur or Polly. He showed me his love in so many different ways, so many beautiful ways in that blissful year we spent together.

He told me, verbally, that he loved me on my seventeenth birthday, nearly a year later. I cried silently into his shoulder when he finally said it. He made fun of me for crying and we made love and he whispered it in my ear over and over and over…

"_Daisy… I love you… I think I've always loved you, Dais…_"

He told me he loved me on my seventeenth birthday: the third of August 1914.

England went to war with Germany the day after.

Nothing was ever the same.

* * *

><p><em><span>End of Part One.<span>_

* * *

><p><strong>It gets much MUCH more angsty from here on out. Enjoy this fluffy chapter because not much good comes again for a while. <strong>

**As a warning, from the next chapter out you might start to hate me a little bit because of what I have planned for our characters, but please bear with me - I'm a sucker for happy endings, remember!**

**Thank you for your support!**


	6. Part Two: 1

Daisy Smith lies in a plush white bed, crisp and clean and smelling of fresh air. Looking around her, she sees the beautiful hotel room she is situated in. Claridges is always lovely, she thinks idly, running a hand through her messy curly hair and trying to tame it. They'd been dancing in the infamous Claridges ballroom the night before and her hair had come out of place.

The sex afterwards hadn't helped the mess either.

Rolling up so she sits with her legs over the edge of the bed, she looks over her naked shoulder at her companion.

James Lewis. A regular. A friend, actually. One of the many inordinately wealthy men she has sex with, keeps company with, for ridiculous amounts of money.

Standing up, her feet falling flush into the soft cream carpet, she pads over to the chaise where she's left her dressing gown and puts it on to brace against the chill of the balcony. Lighting a cigarette, she inhales deeply before releasing, her eyes closing with the relief of the burn. She hears the sounds from London below, the cool air brushing her naked things and cooling the sweat from her neck. The cigarette allows her to breathe properly again and she wonders why she didn't take this up sooner.

_Once you've had a couple, it's hard to stop._

She breathes in too suddenly when that memory creeps into her head and she coughs lightly. She thinks to herself, I know better than to think of him. Never think of him.

Missing in action, Polly had told her that day. No survivors. That fateful day where her world came crashing down around her. He was gone.

She still remembers the blank look on Polly's face. As though she was in shock. Too numb to even cry.

Daisy hadn't even stayed the rest of the day. Why would she ever want to remain in a place full of memories? Full of _him_?

Ada and her hadn't been as close since Daisy was fifteen, what with both of them falling in love so hard. So Daisy had simply written a letter to her supposed best friend - _but _he_ was her best friend_ - saying she had to leave, that she couldn't stand to be there, that she was sorry, that she'd miss her, before getting on the next train to London.

She worked hard towards the war effort for two years before turning to prostitution. She made uniforms to send to the Front, more than she thought she could possibly ever make in her lifetime, let alone two years. Her fingers were numb, so numb and swollen at the end of every day, but all she could think of was him. What if it was him there? She'd want him warm. Every man at the Front was someone's Tommy. And the thought kept her going. For two years, barely making enough to eat, to pay rent, she struggled and suffered and the only thought that kept her going was "What if it was Tommy?"

By December of 1916, she had nothing left. The pitiful money she was getting from making the uniforms and helping out at hospitals couldn't pay for her room anymore, so she was homeless. Without an address, she wasn't getting any rations. No families in the poor area she was in could afford to take her in.

That was when he'd found her.

Or she'd found him.

Alfie Solomons.

He reminded her of Tommy in a lot of ways. Nobody expected much of him, but he always managed to surprise them, being far far more clever than anyone expected. He'd fought for over two years in France before being shot in the leg and was forced to come back to England in October. She'd attended to him in hospital for two months, trying to make him laugh - she used to make Tommy Shelby laugh, surely she could make anyone laugh - and trying her damnedest to heal him.

When he was well, he'd taken her in - the beautiful nurse who, although she made many jokes, never truly smiled with joy. Daisy soon found out that his job before the Great War was as illegal as Tommy's was. He gathered around him a team of men, all who had fought in the War and been sent back with only the horrors of war in their minds to keep them busy, and they started making alcohol to send to the front, or to sell on the black market. Alfie and his men made a significant amount of money, but because of inflation, it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

And Daisy earned a pittance from her own work.

When he'd suggested that she sleep with one of his friends, a wealthy friend who was pretty much keeping Alfie's company afloat, she'd screamed at him, had hit him, had cried at him.

He'd just allowed it, letting the woman who never smiled beat him with her small hands, before saying, "Just think about it, Flower," before walking away.

He was a ruthless man, she'd seen, but he had always been kind to her, always looked out for her. Had taken her in when she had nothing. Had supported her for months while she contributed minimal amounts to their income.

They needed the money that this friend of his was offering.

She knew it. He knew it.

So she did it; she slept with the man who was more than twice her nineteen years and who had no regard for her well-being or comfort. She cried the whole time.

She prayed for forgiveness to Tommy, who she knew had to be in heaven despite his misdeeds because he was so _good_ to her, afterwards, and she had laid in her bed in Camden for three days.

She was numb.

She had become what she'd sworn she never would. What everyone had told her she would be and she'd refused so vehemently.

_If you don't wanna be a whore, Daisy, don't be a whore._

She _was_ a whore. I can't tell these people down here to go fuck themselves, Tommy, she thought one day. There is a war. You are dead and you have taken a piece of me with you. I am starving. I have nothing. I need to help these men, these men who have been thrown out of the pits of hell only to have to come back to Camden and starve and grieve and heal and survive, but not live. We are all just walking ghosts of our former selves.

I can help them, she thought. I can save them.

_You saved me._

The men she was with held her, made her feel wanted. It was a shadow of the comfort Tommy had given her, but if she closed her eyes and pretended hard enough, she could imagine it was his hands that held her, his breath on her cheek.

She was a whore. She is a whore.

Daisy Smith is gone.

* * *

><p>I<strong>'m really nervous about posting this; I feel like you'll all hate me! Please just trust in me to sort this mess out. <strong>

**Any comments are appreciated (especially after this chapter!) Thanks for reading.**


	7. Part Two: 2

She strides into Alfie's hovel - _why does he still do his business here with the amount of money he's making?_ - with her head held high. She smiles blandly at the men who bid her a good morning and her eyes don't light up or even glow. Her small heels click against the ground, a rhythmic tapping that can alert everyone there of her arrival.

The best whore in England.

She's dressed in a drop-waist dress, a fashion she saw in Paris the previous month. 1920 was a beautiful year in Paris - they had started rebuilding in 1919 and the plants and flowers and crops and buildings were all starting to look like they should. The post-war buzz was so catchy - she'd danced a jazz in the clubs of Paris and she danced the same dances now in London with men who could afford to buy hundreds of these clubs. They pay her so handsomely, both in tender and with something that, to Alfie, was far more valuable than money: secrets.

She often reports back on the goings-on within the elitist circles on London to her good friend, her silent partner. He likes to keep tabs on people and what better way to do that than partnering with a small, waifish girl who nobody expects much of? Until they hear her name and they _know_ - this is the woman who half of London would kill to be with and the other half hate for stealing their husbands from them. Nobody outside Alfie's organisation (but the first man she'd slept with for money) knows that her and Alfie are affiliated. Nobody would suspect. They all think her above such people; she almost snorts at the idea.

"Boss is in the office. Says he has a new friend who wants to meet you," Tiny says from the midst of the barrels as he sees her walking in.

She rolls her eyes. Of course he does; Alfie always had more plans in store for her, more people she had to fuck, more secrets she has to gather. Although, she thinks, it is strange that he is okay with being so openly attached to her. The friend must be special.

"Alfie is so lucky in his friends, don't you think Tiny? He has so many." She spins on her heels and continues walking backwards so she can grin saucily at Tiny. It's fake and they both know it. Everyone in this building has seen her pretend so many times that they can now all see what is real and what is not. Smiles are never real. She is an ice queen. The Ice Queen of London who everyone wants to melt.

She taps lightly on the door to his office before Alfie lets her through. She thinks to herself, I should make more of an effort with my introductions to potential customers - Alfie would like that more and maybe they'll stop trying to "make me happy", as a client had told her the week before. Besides, she thinks, he must be important. So she plasters a smile on her face, her perfectly rouged lips quirking up at one corner more than the other.

The smile falls when she walks into the room, and her breath comes short and her vision blurs.

She nearly falls down.

She nearly cries.

She nearly screams with sheer joy and disbelief.

Her mouth forms in a perfect 'o' as the men in the room turn to look at her and she can see his face from the front now rather than just his profile.

He is exactly the same yet so so different. His facial expression doesn't change but she sees - she always sees - his jaw click from him clenching his teeth.

"Tommy." It is a whisper, a breath, a prayer, from her lips.

Chaos erupts in the room.

* * *

><p>"What the fuck is she doing here?"<p>

"Get the fucking whore out of here!"

These come from Arthur Shelby and his brother John, who looks so much older than when Daisy saw him last. She remembers the way he used to play with her and Ada and indulge in their every whim; Arthur too.

Now they look furious to see that she's alive and well, breathing the same air as them - for some strange, strange reason, they despise her.

Tommy says nothing and she doesn't know whether to be elated or destroyed by this. Why isn't he happy to see her? The last time she'd seen him, six years ago, he'd whispered those beautiful words over and over in her ear, making her shiver with both pleasure and sheer unadulterated love.

She'd thought him dead and he is here - this is a _miracle_, she thinks elatedly, despite never being one for God or religion.

Ignoring the men who are still arguing and shouting around her - Alfie is up out of his chair and arguing back, his large frame taking up too much room in the office - she takes a few steps forwards, her usual elegance and poise forgotten as she stumbles, desperate for a touch of him.

He takes a step back and she thinks she can her her heart stop for a beat and break a little more than it was already broken.

She frowns in confusion - why won't he let her near him? He's been _dead_ for years… she needs to touch him to make sure he's real…

He looks so dapper in his suit, his hands in his pockets so casually. He's always loved being casual, she thinks with an internal grin. But she notices something else too, a hardness to him that wasn't there before. His face used to be cool and collected but it's pure ice now. His eyes that used to shimmer with happiness when they looked at her were… indifferent. If it wasn't for the click in his jaw that she recognised, that's what she'd say he looks like - completely, heartbreakingly indifferent. To _her_.

In the end, her gaze is taken away from him when Alfie literally shoots a hole through the ceiling, breaking the plaster in a small corner and effectively silencing everyone in the office.

She blinks dazedly at Alfie, her mind still grasping onto the blissful chant of "he's alive, he's alive, he's here in this room with me, and alive…"

Alfie sits back down in his chair, runs a hand through his hair first and then his beard and looks around at us all.

"What the fuck is going on between you Blinders and Fleur?"

Arthur scoffs and runs his own hand through his hair to flatten and straighten it. "Is that what she's callin' 'erself now? A fancy French name, as though people don't know what she is - a dirty fuckin' whore."

He spits the words at her, looking her up and down in her fancy French dress with her fancy French name and finding her wanting.

"Fleur, what the fuck's goin' on?" Alfie says to her quietly, more baffled than she is by this turn of events. Clearly he had not brought Tommy here for her to please him - he never showed his face to customers. He doesn't know about her old lover, he doesn't know much about her at all now she thinks about it. Her closest confidant knows nothing - if that doesn't say much of her character, she thinks, nothing will.

_"Why Fleur, Alfie?" she asked one day as they overlooked the docks. "What's wrong with Daisy?"_

_"You're my flower, Flower. And you need somethin' to separate who you are with who you're pretendin' to be."_

_"I like Daisy," she whispered into the cold air, not sure if he heard her. _He_ used to like my name, would say it over and over. Daisy Smith. Daisy Smith. _

Is that a challenge, Daisy Smith?

_Her heart hurt._

_"Fleur makes you sound like something these men can't get at any whorehouse in England. If we're gonna do this properly, you're gonna be making more than every other whore in the country put together. And you can't be doing that with a name like a little girl."_

"Dais?" Alfie snaps her back to attention by using her real name. He does it so seldom these days.

"I don't know," she whispers back truthfully because if there's one thing in all the world that she certainly does not understand it's what is happening in this room right now.

John rolls his eyes and takes a threatening step towards her but he stops when Alfie stands up suddenly. "What the fuck is going on here?" He asks again, this time louder - Alfie never raises his voice.

Nobody answers him, but Tommy takes out a cigarette - my heart squeezes painfully - and starts smoking slowly. "This is who's gonna get me all of Sabini's secrets, eh?"

Frozen, comprehension dawning, she stares at him in disbelief. This man who she has loved more than she had ever thought possible... wants to pay her _money_ to sleep with someone…else? With Sabini? The Italian man he speaks of is insane. Rich, but not nearly sane enough for her to willingly sleep with him. Especially now… she's not sure she can sleep with anyone else ever again now she knows he's alive. There is only one person she ever wants close to her again… and he's still staring at her as he puffs away, smoke billowing around him.

"Sabini? What…" She's not been this ineloquent since 1914. She needs to get it together.

When no one speaks to clarify anything for her, Alfie says, "Mr Shelby wants to hire you for… purposes other than…the usual." He says this slowly, as though trying to find the right words as he goes along. He doesn't understand what's going on, but the look in Daisy's eyes right now isn't something he wants to contribute to. She's been like marble for the last four years and this is the first time he's seen her looking so… emotional. He remembers the time he put forward the idea of sleeping with someone for money and she cried and screamed at him - since then, she's been stoic. Like a machine, just making them money, helping him build his criminal empire down here in London. He's not sure he likes this look on her face - she looks like she's floundering. Alfie can't afford to have his main source of income floundering.

"To sleep with someone else?" She asks the question but she already knows the answer. She knows how Tommy thinks - he wants to take over London. He's looking for Sabini's secrets and talking with Alfie Solomons. It could only be that one thing if he's talking to the two main crime lords in the heart of London. Tommy wants in on it. And he wants to hire 'Fleur' to help him.

"Shouldn't be too hard for ya. We hear you open your legs to anyone and anything these days." Arthur is so cold, and bitter and all she wants to know is why.

Why, if Tommy was alive, hadn't he come looking for her? Hadn't written to her? Why was Arthur acting as though she's single handedly started the War? Why was Tommy so indifferent towards her?

_I think I've always loved you Dais…_

"You were dead," she croaks, grasping onto the nearest table for support.

"Only to you, it seems," Tommy says back, staring right through her like she was a stranger.

"Not to me," she says so quietly, he doesn't hear her. He mustn't hear her, she thinks, because he doesn't say, "No, not to you" back. He doesn't say anything back. He just smokes and seems completely unaffected. She, on the other hand, has never been so affected in her life and it clearly shows.

What is it they call her, she thinks. _Ah_ _yes_. The Ice Queen nobody can melt.

Tommy Shelby hasn't melted her, she thinks forlornly. He's smashed her into a million pieces.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for reading; hope you're still enjoying! Comments are always appreciated!<strong>


	8. Part Two: 3

She is stood outside smoking furiously in an attempt to calm her nerves. Alfie had kicked her out of the room after it had looked like she was about to burst into tears - _Fleur! Burst into tears! _- since he didn't trust her to keep this "professional". Of course, he doesn't understand that this is anything _but_ professional, and just the fact that it's meant to be 'professional' makes it all the more personal to her. The love of her life looks at her like she is worthless - the only boy who never did when she was younger - and wants her to sleep with someone else. For money. For secrets. Because that is who she is now - a whore. A good whore, and a rich whore, but a whore nonetheless.

She has been numb for years to her profession. She just does it. She has sex, meaningless sex, in which she plays her part. Whatever that man wants. A fetish played out. A lover to pretend to love. A companion to talk to. Or she could be hired simply because a rich man's son wants to fuck a prostitute for his first time. They are the worst; the ones who treat her like a piece of meat. She is used to it and doesn't complain, but it stings. She has become everything she spent years worrying about as a child. Was it inevitable? Someone so poor like her couldn't have had many options set before her in her life. This was one of them, and many people told her she was incredibly lucky to have worked her way so high within elitist society. She was fucking members of the government, foreign ministers, self-made millionaires… she'd even fucked a prince once. They told her she was lucky. She should be proud of herself.

Maybe a hidden, secret, dark part of her is. _Look at me now, Harry Waller. I have connections in circles you can't even dream of being near. _

It is only when she is alone that she feels the guilt, the hurt, the shame of what she is doing every night. What would Tommy think of her? Would he be hurt? Understanding that she'd done what she had to do to survive? Ashamed to have known her? To have loved her?

She's often wondered this over the years and now she knows the answer. He does not understand. He is disgusted. She doesn't know if she can bear it, but she doesn't know how to change it. She is what she is, what his death did to her. Now that he's alive again… what will she do?

She isn't startled when someone comes to stand by her, but she doesn't expect someone to approach her so soon after the chaos in the office, so she does blink in surprise, almost dropping her cigarette.

"Didn't think you smoked."

Her heart stops; she knows that voice, although time has made it gruffer, harder and war has made it colder. He sounds even more to-the-point than he usually does. She's not sure she likes it purely because it's not the same voice that told her 'I love you' on that beautiful summer's night.

It had been warm, she remembered. That summer was glorious, the best in her life. She was barely at the orphanage, just spending all her time with Ada and Tommy, though not together. Ada was just as wrapped up in her beau as she was with Tommy, but they still tried to remain friends Ada got her days and Tommy got her nights. He always smiled when he saw her, she remembers. Not a big smile of an overly-contended, bragging to the world man. Just a small grin that made his eyes shine and her heart start racing.

The night had been the best of her life.

She says nothing in response, not knowing what he's here to say. Is he here to ridicule her? To explain why he hasn't found her? Why he hadn't bothered to tell her he was alive?

After a whole three minutes of silence, it becomes clear that he's even less verbose than he used to be.

She sighs. She's not sure she can muster up the courage to ask him, because what if his answer makes her feel even worse than she does already? Is that even possible?

"Why?" Her voice is quiet and timid, like the girl who had lost her parents at age three rather than the world-class lover who could make grown men cry if she wanted. "Why didn't you contact me?"

"You left Birmingham. You became a whore." He says it like it is obvious and she feels like the stupid little girl who dared to kiss him when she was fifteen.

"Because I was told that you were dead." It was the worst day of her life. Until now. Although she has to recognise that it is also one of the best, because she now knows that he is alive. Tommy Shelby is still on this Earth and her heart beats stronger with that knowledge. It is still broken. but it is reassured. It's other half is not gone… just lost.

She hears him take a drag of his cigarette. A long one. "I didn't realise you were waiting for me to be out of the picture. Didn't wait very long did you, Daisy? Sorry, _Fleur_."

Her eyes start to sting with unshed tears. He is being cruel and she still doesn't know why.

"Please don't call me that, Tommy. That's not who I am." She is whispering in a throaty voice, her neck muscles straining to not set free the sobs that are lingering there.

"If I'm hiring you for my purposes, that means you're my client now. Or I'm yours. Why shouldn't I call you Fleur? If it's a name reserved for people who fuck you, I've already done that." His face screws up at this in a sardonic, nasty way. He doesn't look like Tommy. He looks like a monster.

Her breath exhales shakily. He would never have been this cruel. What has war done to him? What has _she_ done to him? Has he come out here just to torment her?

"Maybe I should pay you for the services you rendered to me, eh?" His voice has quietened, almost like he doesn't actually want to say those words which offer little support or comfort to her.

She hadn't thought it could get worse. It just did.

Her eyes shut in pain and a few tears escape. Her chest feels heavy.

He has just ruined the best night of her life. The only time in her life when she was happy and joyous and young and so so in love.

She opens her eyes and turns to look at him, her eyes full of betrayal, anger and pure devastation. The second he sees them, his jaw clicks again and his eyes turn to the side. She sees the look of regret in them, but she doesn't care. They both know that was too far.

She pulls her arm back and slaps him harshly across his cheek, her eyes leaking more tears as she does it. He does nothing but look away over the docks, his jaw as tense as it had been since he saw her; she stares at him brokenly for a few moments, disbelieving and outraged and heartbroken, but only long enough for her to see the red welt beginning to blossom on his cheek. She hopes it hurt, because she's not sure she's ever hurt this much. Not even when Polly said he was dead. This is worse: she is dead to him now, surely - otherwise he _couldn't_ have said those things.

She walks back into the building, not being able to bear looking at his face anymore, her heels still tap tap tapping against the concrete floors.


	9. Part Two: 4

She doesn't know what to think. Not after that. After that, she is through feeling guilty. She has just paid for her mistakes and shame with every happy memory of her life. With the past love and hope she'd once felt, the love that he had just torn to pieces right in front of her eyes.

How. Dare. He?

She's never had much in her life but what she does have, or did have, was the knowledge that for a year, maybe several if she counts the love she had for him since their first meeting, she had the love of a man who notoriously did not fall in love. She had loved, and been loved, and it was the only thing that kept her going through the harshness of the war years. And he's ruined it all with a few cruel words.

Tommy Shelby has always been harsh, but he's always been fair. That has changed tonight - he was not fair, or merciful or understanding on this night. He'd been cold. A pale sliver of the man he once was.

She spends the evening in her large bath in her penthouse suite. She runs it and re-runs it when it gets cold. By the time she leaves to go to bed, her skin is so prune-like she almost smiles. She doesn't though; she simply crawls into bed, naked, sits there, surrounded by lush pillows and elaborate furniture, and she cries.

* * *

><p>The next time she sees him, they are at a up and coming night club in London centre. It is full of jazz music and the men and women dancing the new dances that rose from the hardships of war. They are full of life and joy, their faces smiling and laughing as they jump around, the feathers in the girls' headpieces swaying gently.<p>

Daisy doesn't dance tonight. She sits on the lap of the owner in the back corner, smiling idly as he whispers sweet nothings in her ear. He speaks to her of how he knows she loves him because she always comes back. He's the only one who can make her come apart in the bedroom, he says. She doesn't say anything to encourage or discourage him, she just lets him say these things and grasp tightly around her small waist that has only gotten smaller in the last few weeks.

Tommy Shelby has ruined both her memories and her appetite, it seems.

When he walks into the bustling club, surrounded by his usual Blinders in their flat caps - a stark contrast the the glittering feathers on heads in this room - it's like her body instantly recognises that its counterpart is here; she looks over immediately and, by some coincidence, so does he.

His eyes go first to her face, then to the hands around her waist and then to the man she perches gently on, before snapping back to her eyes again. His expression is inscrutable. She is still mad and hurting from their last encounter - would she ever not be hurt by it? - so she just sneers slightly and turns away. She can't bear to look at him, especially not when she's with another man. Almost subconsciously, she pries Edward's hands from her waist and moves to sit on her own chair, facing away from the entrance.

She can't bear to see his judgement. Not after what he did. _Not after what she's done_.

"Are you alright, Fleur?" Edward asks from her side, his tone confused.

She throws him what she hopes is a comforting smile as she catches the nearest waiters eye and asks for another glass of champagne.

She doesn't register a man approaching Edward to lean down into his ear, and she certainly doesn't notice him nodding along.

"Do you mind me conducting some business quickly, my dear?"

She realises, a little slowly, that he is talking to her. She looks at him over her shoulder and shakes her head. "Not at all darling." Her voice is empty like her heart is, and she knows that he doesn't notice a single thing wrong when his face smiles back at her.

She doesn't look back again at him until she hears _his_ voice, and then her head can't whip around fast enough.

"Mr Falcon," he says, his voice almost huffing the words as though he hates having to speak them.

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," she hears Edward reply, looking up at him with confusion.

She knows Tommy hates this. He's so used to his reputation proceeding him.

"Tommy Shelby." He announces it as proud as anybody with that name would, because although Edward doesn't know who he is, everybody north of Gloucester does. They know he is dangerous, they know the Peaky Blinders are not to be messed with. That was the case in 1914, and she has only heard tales of how the Blinders have moved up impossibly further. At the time, she hadn't bothered listening too much because it hurt her to even think of him; but now she knows Tommy is alive and surely at the head of the organisation, she tries to recall every little detail she's heard about them. They are deadly. They are smart. They are cunning.

People speak of "they" as though they are discussing the Blinders, but she knows they're inadvertently discussing him. She knows they are - she knows his intelligence and his thrill for his job… but unfortunately for Edward, he does not.

"Shelby… doesn't your brother Arthur lead that gang we've been hearing so much about? The Peaky Blinders?"

Daisy looks past Tommy to see Arthur behind him, rubbing frantically at his nose and breathing in deeply, not even paying attention.

No, she thinks. It is definitely Tommy leading this criminal gang.

Tommy doesn't dignify the question with an answer. "I 'ave a business proposition for you."

Edward sighs with tiredness, running his hands over his face. "I'm a little busy right now." he indicates towards me, his eyebrows rising to emphasise the meaning behind his words: I want to fuck her, leave so I can do so.

Tommy looks over at me blandly, looks me up and down again before glancing back to Edward. "She'll live."

She knows how easy it would be to cause a scene and demand that Edward give her his attention instead of Tommy. It would mean Tommy's proposition would go unheard and forgotten within minutes. She could stop one thread of his career in London with a simper and a meaningful look towards Edward.

She knows this for sure. She doesn't think Tommy does; doesn't think that he understands the power she holds down here. She is not Daisy Smith here, the little orphan girl who loved him in all the ways a girl can love a boy. Here, she is Fleur, the world class prostitute who makes men believe whatever they want to. She had all the power here… and she doesn't think Tommy knows it.

She knows that she could ruin him with a few visits to her "friends".

She also knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would never do that. No matter what cruel things he says to her.

He broke her the week before, but still she remembers all the times he fixed her in the past. He could say the cruelest things to her, hurt her in a plethora of ways, and she would still never undermine him in this way.

So she turns to Edward and smiles, even though her heart is in her throat and she has to force the words out as casually as she can. "Don't worry about me, darling. I'll be upstairs."

She tries to stand up and saunter off casually, but her knees shake due to Tommy's closeness and she wobbles a little when she stands. Later, she'll talk herself out of what her eyes see, tell herself she imagined it, but when she wobbles on her heels, she sees Tommy flinch and reach a hand up - maybe a whole five inches - to steady her. It stops as soon as his brain registers that he hates her, and he returns to being stoic and resolute in his businessman mode.

She tells herself later that she didn't see it.

But Tommy did. _He_ tells himself later than it didn't happen - nobody but him witnessed it surely - but he knows it did because it had taken a conscious effort to bring his hand back down. Like his body couldn't help but want to help hers.

Daisy sits upstairs on an uncomfortable, but expensive, chaise and smokes slowly as she waits for Edward. She doesn't know how tonight will play out - the last thing she wants to do is pretend she is Fleur and have sex. But she can't be Daisy right now… Daisy would want to run back downstairs and fling herself into Tommy's arms and beg him to love her again.

She is torn between her two personas, torn between who she is and who war has made her. She wonders if Tommy is too. Does he remember the fun they had? The laughter and the love? Can he remember the winter night she ran to his house in the early hours of the morning because it had snowed and the only person she'd wanted to see was him? Could he remember the snowball fight they'd had, him eventually winning and pinning her down into the snow and kissing her senseless as they laughed against each others lips? It had been just them in the bitter chill of the street in 1913. She hadn't cared about the cold wetness on her back, or the way her nose had turned to ice. All she cared about was Tommy's lips on hers and her hands around his neck as he kept her warm with his body`and his care and attention.

God, she'd loved him. And he'd loved her.

Did the man downstairs remember any of this? Had war tarnished every good memory of his? Had her actions?

And what of _his_ actions? He'd not even let her know he was alive. Nor had Ada, or Polly. Why had nobody told her? She wouldn't have ever turned to this life if there was even the slightest chance that he was waiting for her. She would have waited for him for decades if she knew he was the prize at the end. She would never had sought out the company of other men, the warmth of their bodies in a pathetic imitation of him.

She has made a lot of mistakes. But so has he.

She needs to know. She needs to know what happened. She can't live this way, questioning everything, trying to assimilate the Tommy she knew to the Tommy downstairs.

And to do this, she can't be sleeping with other men.

So she leaves the room, ignoring his security when the large man asks her where she is going. She simply walks out of the back entrance, hails a cab and goes back to her cold, barren apartment. As soon as she garners the courage, she declares to herself, she will get the answers she desperately, desperately needs.

And she'll be damned if Tommy doesn't answer them.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the slight filler chapter. The real confrontation, I suppose, is in the next chapter so this was a necessary step. Hope you're all still enjoying despite the somewhat doom and gloom thus far... ;)<strong>

**Thanks for reading! Any comments are, as always, really appreciated and taken on board.**


	10. Part Two: 5

It is not hard to find out where Tommy is staying. Alfie knows for professional purposes; nothing is a secret to that man, mostly because of the information she feeds him, but sometimes simply because he is a smart man who likes to be in the know. And thank God, for she had urgently visited his offices earlier to find out where Tommy's staying during his visit to London. Somewhere quiet, she thinks, and she is right. The area she stands in is a dark and quaint street, with glowing amber streetlights guiding her way to the door.

She hesitates a little before she knocks, but eventually sighs at herself - _don't be so silly_ - and knocks loudly three times.

He doesn't answer the first time; it takes her three tries, each attempt getting louder than the last. He eventually answers the door, not fully dressed - he wears his trousers and a white vest, his braces hanging uselessly down his legs. She tries - and fails - not to look at his lean but muscular arms or the expanse of his chest on show. She remembers a time she fell asleep on it, and he'd told her later than it was calming to him listening to her breathe so closely to him. He used to match his breathing with hers. He didn't think she noticed, but she did. She noticed everything he did.

He doesn't look pleased to see her. He doesn't say anything, just continues to look at her with an expression that clearly says, "What do _you_ want?" and not in a nice way. He is always looking at her, she thinks self-consciously. She used to love it but now it only unsettles her - does he hate looking at her? Does she remind him of the people they used to be?

She clears her throat and remembers why she is here: for answers. She is not leaving without them.

"You got your part out of your system last week Tommy. It's my turn now. Why? Why did you not let me know you were alive?" Her teeth are clenched trying to hold back her emotion but in the end, she unfortunately hears the tremor in her voice.

He stares blankly at her as though she didn't speak, before looking away to the floor and sighing a little. He opens the door wider in an invitation to come in and her spirits lift a little - he is, she hopes, cooperating.

"Want some tea?" He asks, all civilly, as though the last time he spoke to her he hadn't broken her in a way she hadn't even known she could break.

"I want some answers, Tommy."

He unclips his suspenders and throws them carelessly on the back of a sofa that he then indicates she sits on. She slowly takes the seat, and he sits opposite her, pulling out a cigarette and a packet of matches before lighting up.

"I didn't contact you after the war because of the stories I'd 'eard. Men speak about their conquests but soldiers speak more. Everyone on the front lines had 'eard of you by the time 1918 came around, Daisy. The greatest whore in England, they called you. A small girl with no family, bright red curls and from the north, from Birmingham. It could have been anyone, but I knew…" He trails off, his expressionless tone quietening. He says this all like he is reciting the news rather than the tale of tragedy he is revealing to her. Having to hear that when at the front… she can't even imagine it. If she'd heard stories of Tommy sleeping with hundreds of girls, she isn't sure she wouldn't have hated him either.

"I thought you were dead," she repeats again, as though it makes it okay. Does it? Does it make it okay? When torn between sleeping with wealthy men and starving to death, homeless and cold and alone… could anyone begrudge her?

"So you say."

It's strange, she thinks… his tone is disbelieving.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He breathes out. "I was high up in the army, Daisy. I never even went missin'."

She frowns confusedly. "What?"

He doesn't respond and just lets her sit and think this through. He was never even missing? But…

"But Polly said…Polly told me…"

He looks up at her. "Polly told you what? That I was dead?" He scoffs, rolling his eyes slightly as he takes another drag.

Her life is continuing to fall apart around her and he's rolling his eyes.

"Yes!" She chokes, staring at the floor now. What on earth did this mean? Polly…what? Lied to her? Received faulty information that he was dead? What had happened? If Polly had been told falsely, why hadn't she written to Daisy letting her know? She had a right to know.

Now it is his turn to frown. "She never told me she thought I was dead." He says it to himself, not to her.

She exhales shakily, bringing a hand to her neck and wiping the sweat that has formed along the back of it. That was the problem of having long thick hair - the heat. The heaviness. It seemed to be a trend at the moment for women to cut their hair short - a liberation, almost. She had thought about it, but she wasn't sure she could ever part with her hair. She loved it long and flowing, like it always had been.

"Well she told me."

He smokes again, always smoking, always watching, before saying, "Tell me."

He doesn't clarify what he means and he doesn't need to - she knows. He wants the whole story, from the second he left to the moment they reunited.

She tells him everything. From the bone-deep sadness when he'd left her and her determination to do whatever she could to help him and the war effort in his absence. How she'd made uniforms, helped within the factories and tried to help look after Ada and Tommy's family; they'd had a new addition to their clan in the form of young Finn who at the time had been a terrible toddler. She had played with him when Ada or Polly needed a break, much to Polly's dismay since she didn't like Daisy and had never made any pretences about it. She had done everything she could think of to help. She'd stopped talking back to Joe, who (naturally) hadn't left for the front, so he didn't have any excuse to beat her which would hinder her help.

She tells him about the gut-wrenching despair she'd felt when Polly had told her. The tears she'd cried, the way she'd wailed and vomitted. The way she had seen the park where they met, and the orphanage he'd walked her to every night, and the Garrison where they'd laughed and kissed and the city where they had loved… and how she didn't recognise any of it. Didn't want to be around any of it. Couldn't bear to have any reminders of what she had lost - her family. All her friends apart from Ada, who was so focused on her family at that time. And then Tommy.

She tells him of her time in London, helping at hospitals and talking to the wounded soldiers and how she pretended that they were him. She tells him of her room in Camden which had rats and damp and more than once, men had broken into it and taken what little she had, and even tried to rape her once. She tells him of meeting Alfie in the hospital, tells him of the hunger she faced and the cold, and the loneliness of the last two years.

And she tells him of how Alfie had put forward the idea that she sleep with someone for money. How upset and horrified she'd been. How desperate she had been, how desperate they had all been. How, for once in her life, Daisy Smith was the answer, the solution. She tells him, not in detail because she didn't think he'd want to hear, the way she'd sobbed through her first time. How uncaring the man had been for her wellbeing at the time. How empty she'd felt after, but how, for a split second during it, he'd sighed into her ear and she had imagined it was Tommy… and that had made it bearable. It hadn't broken her, only cracked the facade of indifference she'd created around herself.

She tells him of the friends of the man after him, how he had told everyone how beautiful she was. How… unconquerable her emotions were to everyone in London. Men love a challenge, Alfie had said. She was that challenge. And she tells him how she did it over and over, trying to find something to fill the hole inside of her heart, and how the sighs, the needing, the groaning of her companions could temporarily do so… all because she could imagine they were him.

Her voice is monotonous throughout; she has to tell the story like it isn't even her story to tell. She must disconnect herself, otherwise she will break down and sob right here in his living room.

"And then you were there, Tommy…" She whispers at last. "You were there and alive and everything I had ever done came crashing around my ears. You knew… I could see it in your eyes that you knew what I'd done in your absence. I had thought… thought that maybe you would understand. After all, it was war. I had held out hope for two years that you were actually alive. I was so tired, Tommy. So hungry and cold and alone and tired. But you didn't understand… you were disgusted with me. You _are_ disgusted with me." She feels a lone tear streak down her face and she quickly wipes it away with a trembling hand.

"Didn't you think it odd that I wasn't in Birmingham when you got back, Tommy? Didn't you think I might've wanted to know that you were okay, even if you hated me for what I'd done? Didn't Ada? Didn't Polly? I loved you with all of my heart, all of my body and all of my soul… and you didn't even write me a _letter_. Not even an angry one," she laughed a little, her eyes filling with even more water. _Christ, if the men of London could see her now_, she thinks.

He clears his throat, his cigarette long forgotten on the ashtray upon the coffee table. "And what if I 'ad? Hm? Would it have been any different?"

"Of course it would have!" She declared fiercely. "I would have rushed back to Birmingham two years ago and by force or coercion, I would have made you forgive me and love me again."

"I wouldn't have let you stay in my city."

"I wouldn't have given you a choice."

They are quiet.

"I came back," he starts, his voice almost a whisper it is so quiet, "from Hell, Daisy, to hear that you were in London fuckin' other men for money. That you'd left early on in the war… and you'd not bothered to stick around and wait for me. Pol said you couldn't handle the uncertainty. That you'd left with another man."

She swallows thickly. "And you believed her?"

"I told you I heard stories. Hearin' that the girl you spent the last four years plannin' on marryin' is fuckin' half of London isn't… nice."

She closes her eyes in pain. Marrying? He wanted to marry her? She'd have said yes in a heartbeat. They both know it.

There is a long pause. "What would you have done in my position?" She has to know. Would he have stayed in the place that was haunted with memories? With the ghosts of their past?

He lets out a long breath and says, "I don't know, Daisy."

Silence again, until she whispers, "How long would you have waited for me after hearing I was dead before you found someone else to ease your discomfort?"

"Is that what it was?"

"No. I told you… I was desperate. I needed money, and yes, I admit, I needed someone to care, even if just for five minutes."

"I'd have waited."

"For how long?" She pushes, wanting some form of justification for her actions.

"I'd have waited," he replied simply, not answering her question at all.

"Emotionally, maybe. But we both know you'd have sought out the likes of Lizzie Poole soon enough." She says it softly, trying to ease the pain her words cause her. They both know he'd have taken up a lover, maybe not one he was emotionally connected with, but someone to care for his needs.

"Maybe."

"So it would have been okay for you to fuck Lizzie Poole but I am shunned and disgraced for taking lovers as well?"

"You didn't take up a lover, Daisy, you _became_ Lizzie Poole! Worse than her! At least she still 'as 'er integrity!" He is shouting almost now, but she is used to his anger… he has never frightened her and he likely never will.

She stands up out of anger and snaps, "I was lonely and starving, Tommy!"

"I was lonely too! I didn't fuck the whores that were offered in France!"

"Well good for you!"

"You waited two years! I waited _four_ and you still want me to feel sorry for you!"

"Why do you hate me for being like Lizzie, who I'm sure eventually got her turn since you got back?"

"Because you're Daisy!" He yells this, reaching down to bang his fists against the table in front of them. He exhales sharply as he stands up, towering over her with a face like thunder. His voice is quieter and more controlled when he expands, "You were _my_ Daisy. The only innocent thing in our dirty city. The only thing I'd ever loved. And you ruined it."

"I did what I had to do, Tommy. Don't you dare judge me for that."

"You lost everything good about you the second you decided to sleep with Alfie's friend." He sneers the words at her, his eyes blazing. At least he is not indifferent anymore, she thinks to herself sadly.

"I lost everything good about me the second Polly told me you were dead."

That stumps him. He stares hard at her, not quite sure he heard her correctly. "I was the worst thing about you Daisy, we both always knew that."

She swallows again, and involuntarily mutters, "Not to me."

As he walks over to the window, she hears him sigh, "No. Not to you."

She is slowly asking, "So what now?" when they both hear a knock on the door. Neither of them move to answer it; they both just look at each other, both trying to reconcile the people they once knew to the people in this room.

The door sounds again and Tommy shakes his head. "It doesn't matter now, Dais. You're not my Daisy anymore. You're Fleur now."

She walks quickly over to him. She looks him dead in the eye before saying fiercely, meaning every word, "Of course it matters, Tommy."

Again, the door sounds, this time more insistently.

She gathers her handbag and turns to face him again. "I'll see you soon. This isn't over."

She thinks he'll say something cruel again, just to hurt her some more, but instead he surprises her with a nod. At least neither of them are pretending any more.

She says goodbye with her eyes, not able to say anything else - she's said all she has to say for now - before walking down the stairs, him trailing behind her to walk her out and greet his guest.

The air is cold when the door opens and it takes her breath away. So does the pretty blonde girl standing on the other side of it.

Both girls are surprised to see the other.

They both hear Tommy reluctantly mutter, "Grace," in greeting but they don't look at him. They simply examine each other, as though on some level, they both recognise the same thing: this is the competition. This is the other one Tommy has loved.

Daisy's heart, gut and soul, clench painfully when she sees the look between Grace and Tommy. He has loved her too, she sees. She hadn't expected this.

_Why? He is loveable and kind and smart and handsome and strong and you lost any claim you had on him when you fucked a man for money._

She knows this. She knows this all too well, hence why she is at this house trying to make it up to him, trying to understand what happened to them. He is the only person she has ever loved and she will be damned if she lets that go without a fight.

She also knows that this girl, this innocent looking girl with the spark of strength in her stance and her eyes, is better suited for someone like Tommy. She, too, is smart and a fighter. Daisy can tell; it is her job to read people. She can tell that this woman has loved Tommy too, loved the _new_ Tommy. She wonders how that love compares to the love they had when they were younger. The young, innocent love they had shared… did it hold a candle to adult passion?

She thinks she is going to be sick.

Instead, she does what she does best. She plasters on a fake smile, hoping like hell Grace doesn't know it is fake (Tommy will, he knows every nuance about her), and tremulously says, "I'm just leaving. It's nice to meet you, Grace."

And she walks off down the darkened street, ignoring Tommy calling her name and ignoring the bitter chill of the wind. She walks confidently all the way down the street, her heels clapping against the floor rhythmically. She turns the corner, braces herself against the wall of the building and throws up all over the mud splattered concrete.

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><p><strong>Thank you for your lovely comments! Updates may be coming a little more sporadically as of now due to work commitments and studying (damn that postgrad work). <strong>

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	11. Part Two: 6

Daisy has worked hard enough and long enough in this industry to be able to pick and choose her customers. She has never really been that selective, but she is grateful for it after visiting Tommy that day. She has enough money to live comfortably without sleeping around again. This is brilliant in the few weeks after seeing him, because she doesn't think she'd be able to be in the presence of any man wanting sex ever again after being in the same room as Tommy Shelby. How, after all these years, can he set her alight, both mentally and physically? She doesn't argue, really, in her day to day life, but she argued with him. She doesn't cry, but she did. She doesn't shout, but she did. He brings out the best and worst in her all at the same time.

She doesn't know what to do with herself.

She sits in her apartment, making scarves and dresses, reading books that make her happy and trying to lift her spirits after what she'd seen a fortnight ago. The beautiful Grace being alone with her Tommy, loving her Tommy.

He'd always been hers and she'd always been his. And she always would be, even if he decided that Grace was who he wanted and loved now. She would accept this, because she owed it to him. She wouldn't protest if he chose Grace, the beautiful blonde, but she'd simply let him know how much she had loved him - does love him, still inexplicably adores him - and would move on. Perhaps set up a place where prostitutes could go for high quality accommodation and management; if there was one thing she knew, it was the whore industry. She knew how cruel men could be, how violent some of these girls' _madames_ were. She could help them. Provide a safe place for them. Let them know someone cared.

She thinks she might do that anyway.

She won't go home to Birmingham. She can't. Not after what has happened. Why did Polly tell Tommy that she'd left with a man because she couldn't bear to wait for him? Daisy knew, surely Ada knew, that she'd have waited for forever and a day for Tommy to return if she had any kind of reassurance that he would indeed return. _Any_ kind.

Polly had told her for sure he was dead. Missing in action when an attack had come. No survivors, she had said.

Why would Polly say that if Tommy had never even been missing? Why had she given Daisy no hope?

Daisy sighs into her hands. She's sat in her room all day sewing and now James Lewis, the man who is her friend as well as a patron, has persuaded her to come out. He's heard of this new club that has been doing well for itself and apparently she needs to spend some time there. She protests at first, but James is hard to say no to - this is why, of course, he is beyond wealthy.

The club is loud and full of life. Daisy feels like an imposter sitting on her chair, men crowding around her trying to make her smile, make her choose them. She is quiet and, if she is being honest, still sad. For the first time in years, she doesn't know what to do. For the first time in years, she is scared that she will be second best to another woman as per usual; she is used to being the one on the side - she is a whore, and these rich men who pay for her are usually always married. She is never the girl you marry. Except to Tommy of course; he had said he wanted to marry her. But that was before she started sleeping with people for money. Nobody in their right minds would have her now; she is damaged goods, she thinks. She is soiled. And dirty, so so dirty for what she's let happen to her over the years, for what she's willingly participated in.

These men crowding around her want her to choose one of them, maybe so they feel superior - they managed to be the one she singled out. Despite this, a man would never choose her. For herself. For the girl behind the facade. These men want Fleur, but nobody would ever want Daisy, and this is what makes her sad, for it is Daisy who wakes up every morning alone even if someone is next to her and it is Daisy whose head hits a pillow every night. It is Daisy who has these thoughts, these worries, these ideas… Fleur just fucks. She is like two different people, and neither of them are marriage material. She will always be alone.

As she sips on her champagne, _only the best for my little Fleur_, James had said, she tries to come to terms with this. Tries to smile at the men throwing compliments at her, tries to understand that she will always be alone. She snorts as she thinks, maybe Alfie will marry me when I turn thirty, just to make me feel better. They were friends; surely he would look after her once her looks and youth and allure had died out.

The place is loud when they all hear the sounds of glasses smashing and the tell-tale sounds of a fight breaking out. Her head whips around to the far corner of the room and sees familiar flat-top caps and distinctive haircuts.

Of all the clubs in all of London.

James starts trying to usher her out the back way of the room, the men she is with trying to get out of the line of fire rather than helping stop the fighting, but she manages to slip from James' grip and make her way to the glass panel that she leans on to see into the carnage of the dance floor. She needs to make sure he is okay…

A chair gets thrown by a manic Arthur at a man standing a few feet in front of the panel and, preempting the man's reactions, she quickly moves backwards so she doesn't get hit by the incoming chair. In the rush of adrenaline that hits her, she forgets that she is standing in front of a glass panel. She misses the chair, but the chair hits the glass…

It flies at her in a myriad of angles, and she quickly turns around and covers her head to reduce the impact.

She feels the shards cutting into the back of her legs, marking her skin in zigzagging patterns and completely dicing up her Parisian dress. Not that she cares. She falls to the ground along with the glass, her bleeding legs not being able to hold her weight any longer. She hisses through her teeth as tears of pain flood her eyes.

Blissfully, she loses consciousness, but not before hearing a frantic voice she knows all too well shouting her name.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry this is a bit short; work and my masters are catching up with me right now! Apologies!<strong>


	12. Part Two: 7

**Sorry for the delay! Hope you enjoy this; we're getting into the main part of this story with this chapter.**

* * *

><p>She awakens to people arguing and shouting around her. <em>About<em> her, if her hearing is still excellent.

"Why is she here? Why didn't you take her home?"

"She needs someone to look after her," a low voice tells the Irish woman who is shouting.

"Take her to a hospital then!" The woman sounds exasperated, and angry and hurt. Who is she? Daisy wonders.

"I couldn't take her to a hospital, they've got people lookin' for us. She's staying here, Grace." His voice is final, and Grace - _ah, the beautiful blonde_ - huffs indignantly and disbelievingly.

"If you think I'm gonna let you keep this whor—"

He cuts her off. "You don't _let_ me do anything, Grace, especially not after what you did to me."

That quietens her. "I'm willing to throw my old life away for you, Tommy. Are you willing to do the same for me?"

She's not sure if Grace means it as a rhetorical question, but Tommy doesn't answer regardless and Daisy soon hears a door slam.

She opens her eyes and, as though they know exactly where they want to look, she stares straight at him. He hasn't noticed that she's awake so she gets to see him just be himself for a few moments. He looks troubled; he is running his hand through his hair, smoothing it down, and rubbing his hands up and down his face as though to clear some of the worries he has.

She knows that she is one of them; she hates that.

She clears her throat gently, alerting him to her wakefulness. She feels like a voyeur, and she knows that he would dislike her seeing him as this disadvantage. He is not hers to look at anymore.

He looks at her sharply, as though he knows without asking that she heard the argument he was having with Grace. He pauses a moment, then says, "You feelin' all right?"

She nods, trying to sit up from the sofa she is laid on. The room is the same one she was in the other night with Tommy - she is in his living room, and the place only reminds her of what was said between them. How both of them are different people now, and how she'd wondered and hoped that these two people could one day love each other as they had once done.

As she sits up, she feels her leg twinge with pain and she grimaces. He obviously sees this because he walks over to the sofa where she is laying, nodding nonchalantly at her leg. "It'll take a few weeks until you're back to normal, the doctor says."

She nods again, not sure what she needs to say first. Thank you? What happened? Is there any kind of hope for us? Who is Grace to you?

She goes for the first two; she doesn't want to seem desperate. She is not the young girl who pined after Tommy Shelby any more… She is a woman now, she thinks, a woman who for all intents and purposes is still in love with (and if she's being honest with herself, she thinks forlornly, still pines for) even though he doesn't seem to even want to look at her.

He tells her that she collapsed after the fight in the club and he managed to get her out of there and to his room with a doctor arriving only moments after they did. She wants to ask why he helped her at all, but again, she keeps quiet. She is so out of her depth when it comes to him now. She doesn't know him. She doesn't know how to approach a man so full of character, full of strength, as he is. She is a young girl again, talking back to Ada's older brother for ruining their game of hide and seek, and she doesn't know how this boy will react. Except he is a man now - she is supposed to know men, but this one… he is the exception to every rule of hers.

"Thank you for helping me," she says quietly, not looking at him. She snorts in a bid to make the situation lighter and says, "I bet James all but ran out of the club at the first sign of trouble; he's too rich to be hurt in a bar fight."

He doesn't smile but he does twitch his lips up and exhales in a ghost of a laugh; it's more of an acknowledgement that she spoke but still, it is something. _He is giving me something_.

"I didn't know you were gonna be there. We didn't go lookin' for trouble," he tells her, as though it matters at all. He could have gone there with the sole intent of causing every shade of trouble imaginable and she'd have still wanted to run to him and hold him as she did then. He looked as out of place as she felt; a rare quality in Tommy Shelby.

She nods, saying, "I know. I should have left, I suppose. But I needed to see if you—"

She trails off, unsure about his reaction to her staying to make sure he was okay. As she has recently discovered, she's not sure if he's still hers to worry about. Finally, remembering their somewhat mature conversation they'd had about their relationship, she notches her chin higher and finishes her sentence strongly. "I needed to see if you were okay. In my mind, you've just risen from the dead and I'm not having you scare me again with anything even _close_ to that."

She's worried he'll react poorly to that but she thinks she hates it more when he doesn't have any reaction at all; why does he keep everything so bottled up all of the time? She needs to know his feelings, what he's thinking. She used to know but now she's not even sure she could guess. She poured her heart out to him the last time they spoke and now she needs to know his stance on it.

"Say something," she whispers in the end. "Anything. I need to know what you're thinking."

He clears his throat, bringing his fingers to his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose. It's a trait he didn't have when he was younger but she sees it fits him now - running an expanding empire must take its toll and she's sure she's not helping. If she was his and he was hers she'd try in any way she could to aid him, to relieve some of his stress, to help the scenario if she could.

"I'm a bit out of my depth 'ere, Daisy," he tells her slowly, seemingly far more stressed than she'd originally thought.

"What's happened?" It can't just be her, or Grace's ultimatum… his tense shoulders tell her something else is on his mind.

He sighs and almost smiles, like he's pleased that she can still read him so well. Or bemused. "Sabini's movin' against me; last night pissed him off. We're pissin' on his territory and he doesn't like it."

"He and Alfie have some kind of silent agreement not to overstep on each others boundaries," she says slowly, testing the waters to see if he minds her bringing up her knowledge of London's criminal underground. She doesn't think he likes being reminded of how she became so knowledgable.

He nods. "Well the Peaky Blinders are trying to get in, but it doesn't look like there's room for three big names."

"So you're trying to remove Sabini?"

He nods again, sitting down with his legs splayed and his elbows on his knees. He looks older than his actual age in this moment, she thinks… She wishes she could go sit on his knee and help him forget, just for a moment or two, the stresses of his life. She's always been good at that with him and she's sure time has only improved her skills. She wouldn't mention that part to him but she just wants to hold him again, and have him hold her. She's been held often in her line of work but nobody has ever made her feel the way he did: safe, secure, loved, cherished, respected and wanted all at once.

She knows nobody will ever make her feel that again. He is it for her and she knows then that she will fight for her right to hold him again. She will not let him walk off into the sunset with beautiful Grace; she will fight for him.

She wants to help him, in any way she can. And then she remembers what he originally wanted her for…

"I can help," she says quietly, not sure how he'll react. She doesn't want a repeat of last time and she doesn't want him to think she's doing this as a job for money - she's doing it for him and he needs to know this.

He cocks his head at her questioningly.

She swallows nervously. "You originally wanted someone to… get in on the inside and report information back. I could help, if it will make you worry less. If it'll help you. If it means you don't look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders." She laughs a little here, but inside she wants to cry - she's offering herself up for something she knows she'll despise and she doesn't want it to be in vain. If it will help him… she knows she would do anything. She wants to be some kind of salvation to him - even if her part is just a small one.

He doesn't explode in a fit of anger and hurt and cruel remarks like last time and she takes this as a good sign. He seems to actually think about it, staring at her the whole time. She just sits and stares back, letting him process.

"You want to do this?" His deep voice is emotionless and monotone, but the click in his jaw says otherwise.

She shakes her head hesitantly. "Not for me… but if it would help you…"

"I wouldn't make you do something you didn't want to do, Daisy," he tells her shaking his head, as though clearing it of thought. He moves over to the window, looking out it pensively.

"I've not wanted to do any of this Tommy. It doesn't mean I won't. Tell me, honestly, as if I wasn't your's once, if I was just a business associate… would this help you?"

She knows the answer before he nods. It's what he wanted that day they met again - someone on the inside.

She smiles shakily at him, trying to muster up the courage both of them know she doesn't feel. "Then I'll do it. I'll help you."

She thinks for moment, her smile dropping, before she clenches her jaw slightly and turns her face away from him. "Please, don't even think about paying me. Don't insult me like that." Her words are quiet; she can't bear to think of her being hired to sleep with Sabini by Tommy of all people. She'll do this because she loves him and for no other reason.

"Dais…"

His voice is closer than it was before, and she knows he's right behind the sofa where she is still sitting. She can almost feel the heat of his body, feel his closeness, the electric feel of him so near her. She can smell him, all masculine and cigarettes and Tommy, and she closes her eyes as the waves of nostalgia hit her. He is all she has ever wanted.

And then he ruins her memories by saying,

"You don't have to sleep with him if you don't want to, Dais."

_Well, thanks_, she thinks forlornly. Why would she ever want to? Has he not heard what she's been saying? She's not wanted any of this, and she tells him so through clenched teeth.

He sighs, and for a second she feels a ghost of his hand on her hair. He always loved her hair.

"You offered, Dais, I didn't want you to think I was making you sleep with him."

She scoffs. "Noble. I'm not doing this for a job, Tommy. I'm doing this because I've loved you since I was nine." She turns her head sharply, knocking his hand away. His face shows no sign of the affection his body has, however unknowingly, shown. "I will do this because I still love you and even if you want Grace now, I will be whoever and whatever you need me to be for you. Take that how you want but let's not have any mixed signals. Now, can I have some peace and quiet so I can think about how the hell I'm going to manage to persuade Sabini to trust me enough to tell me secrets he wouldn't tell every whore he hires. Secrets pertaining to you. I can't do that with you here making me feel like a cheap, dirty whore. I'm sure you have better things to do than babysit me, so leave, please, just for a while."

He does, silently, but the slam of the door echoes throughout the room. She's not sure if she's made progress or not, but she feels as though she's just laid her heart out for inspection… and he found it wanting. But then she remembers his hand and her belly tightens with emotion: he needs time, she needs time, they need time. And she remembers her promise to fight for him. And she knows then that his hand on her hair told her all she needs to know: he is trying, too.

There was the tiniest glimmer of hope and she clings to it with everything she has.

There is hope, she says to herself over and over again as she lays back down.

There is hope.


End file.
